


Countrycide (by Misadventure)

by Fionn_Sgeul



Series: Midnight Garden [7]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, BAMF Gwen Cooper, Fae & Fairies, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Gwen Cooper and Gwyneth the Maid are the same person, Gwen is older and wiser and may have gone slightly off her rocker at some point, Gwen isn't human, Protective Gwen, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:49:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25537603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fionn_Sgeul/pseuds/Fionn_Sgeul
Summary: The Torchwood crew heads off to investigate a series of mysterious disappearances in Brecon Beacons National Park. Gwen is over the moon at first -- out in nature with all her favourite people! What could be better? (Shut up, Owen, it's great.)But then someone has unmitigated gall to kidnap half her team and try to murder the other half.Gwen does not get upset about these things; oh no, she does not get upset. In these situations, it is absolutely crucial to keep one's head, keep it together, and do what you have to do. And Gwen does. She is the picture of rational calm.Or maybe murderous tranquility would be a better term.
Series: Midnight Garden [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/491872
Comments: 9
Kudos: 17





	1. The World's Most Disastrous Camping Trip

**Author's Note:**

> And now the episode that really started to put me off the series. I'll be honest, I hated Countrycide. It was super dark, it was gross, and there didn't seem to be any point to the whole thing other than to make the team question why they were even doing their jobs when humans were this horrible. It made _me_ question why I was watching the show if things were this horrible.
> 
> But that kind of dissatisfaction is what usually drives me to write fanfiction in the first place — to Fix Things — so I suppose it indirectly helped lead to this series. And I gotta admit, injecting Faerie Gwen into a situation like this was fun. It brings out her dark side, and her dark side is fun to write. ; )
> 
> Warnings for some gore, though significantly less than the original episode, because ugh.

Gwen and Owen were at opposite ends of the car — he in the driver's seat, she in the very back with the luggage — and opposite ends of the mood spectrum. Gwen was delighted at the prospect of getting out of the city and into nature for a bit, while Owen bemoaned it at every opportunity. His complaining was mostly drowned out by Gwen singing cheerfully in Welsh.

Her good mood buoyed up the rest of the team, though Owen did his best to remain surly, even when Gwen danced around him, grabbed him, and kissed the tip of the nose when they stopped at a hamburger stand for lunch. Jack saw him crack a smile when her back was turned, though.

Tosh refused a hamburger, telling them a friend of hers had contracted hepatitis from a hamburger stand like this.

Gwen snorted. "Don't you fuss about hepatitis. I can mop that up, no trouble — well, viral hepatitis, anyway."

"I wish you wouldn't be so bloody _casual_ about whipping miracles out of your sleeves," complained Owen. "Do you have any idea how hard some strains of hepatitis are to treat?"

Gwen just smirked and munched on her burger.

They were off into the Brecon Beacons national park to investigate a series of seventeen mysterious disappearances. The most recent, a young woman by the name of Ellie Johnson, had been taken actually in the middle of a phone call.

Hers was the disappearance that had really drawn Torchwood's attention, because not only had she been taken while on the phone, but whatever it was had managed to take her _from her car_ , out on the road.

That was not at all the behaviour one would expect from human kidnappers.

So here they were, on their way to about as far out into the middle of nowhere as you could get in Wales, to Owen's disgust and Gwen's delight. She was even more delighted when she learned they'd be camping. Owen was horrified.

"What's the matter with a hotel?" he demanded.

"People are going missing around here — do you really want to stay in a place run by strangers?" asked Jack.

"Oh, because sleeping outside's gonna be a lot safer."

Gwen, on the other hand, couldn't understand why they needed tents. "Look at it," she said, gesturing at the heavy-duty, army-issue tent they'd pitched. "We might as well be inside."

"Exactly," said Tosh. "It'll keep us warm and dry."

"But it isn't going to rain tonight," said Gwen with perfect confidence. "And it isn't _that_ cold yet … is it?"

Tosh remembered Gwen saying that faeries didn't feel cold the way humans did. "It's cold enough. Can you really not feel it?" she asked, fascinated.

Gwen shrugged. "Only if I try, concentrate. I forget sometimes how temperature-sensitive the rest of you are."

"Yeah, well," said Jack dryly as he walked past with a bundle of canvas. "Those of us who do feel cold would prefer not to freeze our tender bits off, thank you."

Gwen frowned and chased after him, away from Tosh, saying, "I'm _quite_ sure it isn't cold enough for freezing tender bits off…" and she continued into a spirited rant about experiencing nature that Tosh only caught snatches of.

Turning back to the task of getting the tents up, Tosh shook her head and laughed to herself.

***

The smell of the trees and the feel of the wind in her hair made Gwen want to sing. She was fond of Cardiff, she really was, and the Rift needed watching, but out here in the country, she felt she could breathe more easily. She felt lighter, bubbling with energy. She needed this.

And if there was something to hunt in these woods, all the better. Gwen liked hunting.

Owen, however, seemed to like none of this. Gwen found it hard to wrap her head around. Could he really be that acclimated to cities — to artificial, controlled environments? Did he not feel that power of nature around him? …Or maybe he did, and maybe that scared him.

Owen complained when Jack set him the task of pitching the third tent, looking at the tent like he had no idea what to do with it. Tosh asked if he needed help.

"If I did, I wouldn't ask you," he snapped.

Gwen sensed Tosh's hurt and scowled. She raised a gust of wind and knocked Owen flat.

"Oi!" he shouted.

"Rude," she called back. She allowed a flash of judgement and disapproval to show through for a moment before she was back to being playful and cheerful. Owen being an insensitive tosser wasn't going to get her down today.

Owen mumbled an apology to Tosh, and in the end, both she and Gwen helped him set up the tent. Gwen still thought her little collection of mortals were trying to bring too much of the city with them, but on the whole was pleased with their camp. Instead of being split up and locked behind doors in a hotel, the team would be all gathered together, the men in one tent and the women in another. Gwen could set herself up outside for the night and keep an eye on all of them at once. And anything approaching them would have to cross open ground right in front of her.

Yes, she could keep her mortals safe from whatever was taking these people. A chill ran across the back of her neck, and she looked up at the hills. Was her active imagination at it again, or were they being watched?

Better go have a look around, she decided. They needed firewood anyway.

***

A piercing whistle from Gwen brought the rest of the team running. They found her standing over a sheet of bloody tarpaulin and a pathetic little heap of a carcass. It took them a moment to even identify it as human; all that was left was bloody bone and some sinew to hold it together. Maggots crawled all over it, and even Owen had to fight not to gag.

"I caught some movement off in the distance," Gwen told them. "Thought it was a person. When I went after it, I found this."

Owen gritted his teeth and crouched to examine the body while Jack asked Gwen questions.

"And you didn't see what this thing was or where it went?" asked Jack.

"No, I barely glimpsed it. I might be able to track it, though; I'm a decent tracker."

"Maybe later," said Jack. "Owen?"

"Well," said Owen, "It's not Ellie Johnson, that's for sure. This is a male — late forties, fifties. Wasn't killed here — no blood spatter or signs of struggle. Must've been brought here after he died."

"It's been defleshed," said Gwen darkly. "Look — cut-marks. That's what a deer carcass looks like after you take the meat off it. This person has been butchered — literally."

"So they're being eaten?" asked Suzie, face pulled into a tight grimace.

"Maybe," said Jack. "And if so, eaten by something with knives. This isn't just some monster. We're dealing with something with intelligence, here."

"But why dump the body here?" asked Suzie. "It doesn't look like they were trying to bury it."

"Maybe Gwen disturbed them, scared them off," said Tosh.

"Or maybe it's a warning?" suggested Ianto as he ran police tape around the trunks of trees to mark out the scene. "Whatever's responsible, marking out their territory."

Jack crouched down next to Owen, studying the grisly sight. "Cause of death?"

Owen shook his head. "Impossible to say. There isn't enough left."

Jack opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped at the sound of an engine starting.

"Is that ours?" asked Gwen.

"Yep," said Jack, already running, and they all hared after him.

***

Gwen, of course, got there first. She found the SUV driving over their tents and mowing them flat. She froze, and a dozen thoughts went through her head in an instant. She could attack, knock the vehicle on its side or its back. But that would damage it, and getting home would be inconvenient without it. Plus, they'd still need to break into it to get to whoever was inside, and that thing was reinforced up the wazoo.

She could jump on the bonnet with eyes blazing and try to scare the driver. But that would just end in a lot of speeding and swerving to throw her off. And if she broke through the windscreen to get to them, it would make the car pretty undriveable.

The others came dashing into view. "What should I do?" Gwen shouted at Jack as the SUV turned away from camp.

"Let it go — we can track it," he called back.

They watched it roar away, and then started picking up the pieces. Tosh berated Owen for forgetting basic security protocols and _leaving the bloody keys in the SUV_. He got defensive, but did apologise.

Ianto, meanwhile, was already working on tracking their runaway vehicle. "Got a signal," he reported. "It's currently … 3.4 miles west from here."

"Gunning at ninety, no doubt," said Owen. "You steal a piece of equipment like that, you drive straight on till morning."

"Actually … no. It's been stationary for the past four minutes. I'd go so far as to say it was parked," Ianto said wryly.

"There's a small village in that area," said Suzie, examining a map. "Other than that … nothing for thirty miles."

"What were you saying about intelligence, Jack?" said Gwen grimly. "None of the other bodies were ever found. So why leave this one out, and then practically lead us to it?" She looked at him expectantly.

Jack groaned. "It's a trap. They've been watching us since we arrived. They distracted us, and now they're trying to lure us where they want us."

"So what do we do?" asked Suzie, looking at Jack. "Just walk into it?"

Jack shrugged. "Not much else we can do, other than run. And anyway, we've got a secret weapon." He grinned at Gwen, who gave him the knife-edge smile back.

***

It was a scenic walk of hills and small cliffs. Gwen enjoyed it enormously, though she was alert every minute for movement. At last a tiny village of old stone buildings came into view — maybe a dozen of them, strung out along a valley with a forest at one end.

"Has the SUV moved?" asked Jack.

"Not for…" Ianto checked his watch, "an hour now."

They walked into the village, through low stone walls and farm equipment, until they came to the village pub, _The Cap House_. The whole place seemed deserted, with no sound save the cawing of crows. As one, they all hesitated at the main street, looking around. This place made Gwen's hair stand on end.

Jack turned to the team. "Tosh, Ianto, Suzie — follow the signal, find the SUV. Owen, Gwen…" He turned back to the pub. "…Let's see if there's any room at the inn."

"Wait," said Gwen. Everyone looked at her as she turned in a slow circle, staring. "We're being watched. I can feel it."

They turned wary eyes on their surroundings. "Any idea where from?" Jack asked quietly.

"No. But I don't like this. I want to take a few precautions." She turned to the three who were to go after the SUV. "If you three are going to be out of my sight, I want a way to find you."

"You can track us by our phones," said Tosh, but Gwen shook her head.

"They could be damaged or switched off. I have something better." She beckoned Ianto closer. He came without hesitation, frowning in puzzlement. Gwen gripped him by the left forearm.

"Ah!" he gasped, pulling back. Gwen let go, and he immediately tried to pull up the sleeve of his jacket. "What did you do?" he asked. Then he got his sleeve up high enough and went still. The others leaned in to look.

A golden symbol glistened on his skin, under the hair on his arm. It was a tree surrounded by a circle of fire.

"I marked you," said Gwen simply. "With this on you, I'll always know where you are. And you'll know if I'm looking for you, because it'll get hot. And if you need me…" She took Ianto's other wrist and placed his hand over the mark. "You put your hand over it, and you say my name. I'll hear you, and I will come." She smiled up at him, and Ianto felt a funny shimmy in his stomach. This was faerie magic, right there, _on his arm_. It felt weird.

Gwen turned to Tosh and Suzie. "I'd like to mark you too, in case you get separated. It isn't a tattoo or anything; I can take it off later."

Tosh took a breath and nodded, holding out her arm. "Okay." Gwen smiled at her trust and gripped her, making her gasp. Suzie was right behind Tosh, eager and fascinated at any new insight into faeries. She and Tosh also pulled up their sleeves to stare at their marks.

"Actually, I wouldn't mind if this were a tattoo," said Suzie. "It's cool." She turned her arm this way and that and studied the way the mark caught the light.

"It's my personal symbol," Gwen admitted. "Every faerie has one." She looked like she was about to say something else, but thought better of it.

"What if _we_ get separated?" asked Jack, raising an eyebrow at her.

Gwen frowned at him. "Good point." She held out a hand expectantly, and Jack delivered his arm into it with a grin. Then Gwen looked at Owen.

He hesitated, then sighed. "Oh, all right, might as well. If nothing else, it gives me a way to get your attention whenever I like."

Gwen smirked at him, but there was fondness in it. She marked him too.

"Right, then," said Jack with a grin. "See ya in hell."

***

The pub was old-fashioned and low-ceilinged, and probably would have been cozy if it weren't so dark and deserted. Jack and Owen pulled out torches, whilst Gwen instinctively lit up her eyes. Scanning the room, Owen turned and caught sight of her.

"Er … you might want to _not_ do that," he said, "just in case we do come across somebody."

Jack turned to see what he was talking about and snorted. "Yeah, you look pretty spooky like that. Here." He dug a second, much smaller torch out of a pocket and tossed it to her. "Try not to kill it."

Gwen sighed dimmed her eyes. "I'll try."

The main floor was empty, but Owen found money still in the till. They started up the creaky stairs, Jack in the lead. He pulled out his revolver and pointed it at one door, nodding Gwen to another. She headed for it, extending her senses. No concentration of heat and life grabbed her attention, but after this technique had failed to pick up the Cybermen, she wasn't letting her guard down.

The room she entered was a dark, dingy kitchen, empty save for the buzzing of a fly. She shone the torch around and flared her nostrils to sniff.

Oh, yeah; she could definitely smell blood.

First she spotted a faint smear of it on one wall. Then she looked at the floor below it.

She had to turn away quickly. If anything, this body was worse than the last one, because it still had recognisable bits — still had skin and flesh on its lower arms and legs. Gwen leaned on the kitchen table and took a few deep breaths before calling for Jack. Her voice came out shaky, which was probably what brought him hurtling in gun-first, Owen on his heels. She just pointed.

They stood and stared. "Oh my god," mumbled Owen. "Oh my god…"

A door closed somewhere on the floor below. Jack was out of the room before Gwen and Owen had even managed to move. Gwen chased after him. Owen stayed with the body.

The main floor was still deserted, so they ran out into the street.

"Anything?" Jack asked Gwen.

"We're still being watched. And there's something nearby, just at the edge of my senses…" She turned in a circle and clenched her teeth with frustration. "I can't pinpoint it. It's just a tickle."

Jack gestured at the building adjoining the pub. "Let's check in here."

Gwen couldn't sense anything in the house, so she let Jack lead again, though she was ready to defend him at any second. The house was homey and full of floral prints … and the smell of blood.

"There's another body in here," said Gwen in the living room. "I can smell it."

"Yeah," said Jack, shining his light on a little puddle of congealed blood on the tile floor. He followed a trail of droplets around the corner into the kitchen, then backed out again. "Yeah," he repeated, strained.

"What did this, Jack?" asked Gwen quietly. "'Cause whatever it is, it can't be human."

"I dunno; I've never seen anything like it." He looked over his shoulder. "There are another two houses. We'd better go have a look."

***

Tosh, Suzie, and Ianto followed the signal on the SUV to an old stone building with most of its windows boarded up. Ianto tried the front door, but it was locked. All three of them jumped when something cried in the woods.

"What was that?" asked Tosh.

"Fox," said Suzie with perfect confidence. But she must have felt like they were being watched too, because she got her gun out. "Come on."

Tosh and Ianto went around one side of the building, Suzie the other. All other doors proved to be locked. Suzie went back around to the front to take a better look at windows while Tosh fiddled with the back door and Ianto went further out behind the building.

"We should carry on straight up there," he called to Tosh. When she didn't reply, he turned. The back of the house was deserted. His stomach went tight. "Tosh?" he called, pulling out his gun. "Tosh? Suzie!"

He was back at the corner of the house, between it and a stone wall. Out front, Suzie shrieked and a gun went off. Ianto took off running, heart in his throat. As he came around the corner to the front, something smashed into him, and the world disappeared.

***

Jack and Gwen worked their way methodically down the line of houses, searching every room inside and the alleys in between. They were all empty, but only recently deserted. They found cups of tea out on a kitchen table, and a kettle that wasn't completely cold yet.

When they got to the last house, the door was locked. As far as Jack was concerned, that was red flag enough; people rarely locked their doors this far out in the country. But then Gwen looked at him and said, "There's something in there. I can feel it."

He brought up his gun and prepared to take point, but Gwen held up a hand. "No, I'll go first. No offence, but I'm more dangerous than you."

Jack backed off. "Not arguing with that," he said, hoping she was also about as hard to kill.

Gwen put a finger on the keyhole and shut her eyes. A soft creaking noise came from the lock. After maybe fifteen seconds or so, it clicked open. She looked at Jack. "Ready?"

He adjusted his grip on his gun. "Ready."

She cracked open the door. It was still held by a chain. She wrenched it free. Jack saw her eyes widen.

BANG.

The gunshot made Jack's ears ring. Gwen staggered back and vanished as the door swung closed.

"Gwen!" Jack groped at where she'd been standing. His hand met leather — her jacket. He grabbed her and dragged her away from the door. He could hear her gasping, feel her invisible form shaking. He gripped her shoulder and found her other one with his other hand. She radiated bitter cold. "Gwen! Are you hurt?"

She appeared under his hands. Her face was white, her hair caught in her mouth. Her breath misted in the air. She looked down at herself.

"Oh," she mumbled disconsolately. "I liked this jacket."

Jack followed her gaze. He could see little holes in the leather on her right side. He shoved his hand up under her jacket. It came out red with blood and so cold he could barely feel it. "Shit," he muttered.

Gwen stuck her own hand in to cover the wound. Her eyes focused on Jack. "I'll be fine," she said, voice still wobbly. "It's not serious." She nodded at the door. "Get after him. Looked like a human to me."

Jack kicked the door in and found himself facing a terrified teenager with a shotgun. "Put the gun down on the floor!" he roared, pointing his Webley at the kid's head. When the kid hesitated, he repeated it. _"Put the gun down on the floor."_

He dropped it with a clatter, his eyes going past Jack to Gwen, who'd staggered into view and was leaning on the doorjamb, hands covered in blood. "I thought you were them!" he cried, in a clear Cockney accent that pronounced most of his THs as F. "I thought you'd come back for me."

"Thought who'd come back for you?" demanded Jack. The kid dropped back on the stairs and started to cry. _"Who?"_ yelled Jack.

Owen came tearing up to the front door. "What 'appened?"

Gwen turned to him and lurched, one hand clamped on her wound. Owen saw the blood. "Jesus," he swore, grabbing her to steady her and already trying to get his pack and its medical supplies off his back.

"Gwen's been shot," said Jack, unnecessarily.

"I'll be fine," she insisted, voice steady now. She staggered and grimaced. "Though if you wouldn't mind helping to get the shot out, that would be wonderful," she admitted.

"On it," said Owen, assessing their situation. "Kitchen table's the best place. Come on, I'll help you."

Jack started to move to help, but Owen, despite being about the same size as Gwen, scooped her up off her feet without much trouble. Owen headed to the kitchen, ignoring Gwen's protests that she could walk just fine on her own, thank you. It was her complaints more than anything else that reassured Jack that she'd be all right, so he stayed to deal with the kid and then search the rest of the house.

Thank whatever will that ruled the universe that apparently getting shot wasn't enough to set off Gwen's temper, thought Jack as he took a steadying breath. Getting reduced to a red smear on the wall would have been an unfortunate end for this teenager, especially if he had information.

***

Seeing Gwen down was freaking Owen out a bit. It was like he felt she ought to have been bulletproof. He'd watched her walk straight into the fire of Cybermen without flinching … but they'd been firing energy bolts at her rather than actual projectiles. And apparently Gwen could be hurt by actual projectiles the same as anyone else.

He got her settled on the kitchen table with a pillow under her head and gently peeled her bloody shirt away from the wound. She was perforated with a dozen holes, but she'd been bloody lucky. They hadn't gone deep and they hadn't hit anything vital. He told her as much.

She snorted gently. "I'd have been fine even if they had. But I'd have had to do some major healing and burn up the shot inside me, and that would have been exhausting. And now seems a bad time to be exhausted."

"Yeah," agreed Owen, probing carefully. He grimaced. Gwen was freezing to the touch. "Could you stop doing the cold thing? My fingers are going numb."

"Oh, sorry." The chill disappeared so quickly it was like he'd stuck his hands in a bucket of warm water.

"Thanks. D'you want any anaesthetic?" Normally he would have just given it without asking, but Gwen wasn't human, and besides that, she didn't look like she needed it. She was quite possibly the calmest person Owen had ever treated, a grimace her only reaction to his touching a fresh, open wound.

"No thanks. I'm already putting the nerves to sleep."

"Damn, wish I could do that," muttered Owen. He got out a pair of tweezers and poked into the largest hole. Gwen's hands twitched and clenched, but otherwise she didn't move. The tweezers found the little piece of shot, and Owen popped it out and moved on to the next one. By the time he got to the third hole, he stopped in astonishment, because the first one had just closed over before his eyes. He remembered her healing Ianto the first night he'd met her and shook his head.

"Bloody hell but you heal fast," he muttered.

Her lips twitched in a flicker of a smile, and he pulled out the next piece of shot.

"D'you miss being a doctor?" Gwen asked quietly.

"'Scuse me, I still am a doctor!" He glanced at her with a hint of a smile. "I just don't deal with patients anymore, that's all." He glanced up again. "It's ideal," he told her in a stage whisper. "That was the bit I always hated." He chuckled.

"Hmm," said Gwen, watching him thoughtfully. Owen had the spooky feeling that she was looking right into the heart of him and seeing everything — why he'd become a doctor, and why he'd left it for Torchwood. He ducked his head and gave her wound his full attention.

Jack came clattering back down the stairs and reloaded the shotgun. "What's taking the others so long?" he asked, on edge.

"Jack, give them a chance," said Owen. "The SUV might be locked up or under guard."

"Or they might be dead!" said the terrified kid. They all looked at him. "Well everyone else is!" he cried, raising his arms helplessly.

"Sit down," Jack ordered. Owen approved; that kid was barely hanging on to the ragged edge of reason. They needed to keep him calm.

"They haven't sent me a distress signal," said Gwen. "It would be hard to take out all three of them without one having the time to call for help."

But she was worried; Owen could hear it in her voice. He was too, he admitted to himself.

Jack sat in front of the kid. "Tell us what happened here."

"It's _not human!_ " the kid insisted, gesturing insistently. He tried to get up, but Jack stopped him. "Look, my mum won't know what's 'appened to me — they're only expecting me back for the weekend!"

"Look, we'll get you home, okay?" said Jack, trying to calm him.

"What are you gonna do?" demanded the kid, voice high with fear. "You can't fight them! They're too strong!" He headed for the door. "The only thing we can do is barricade the door."

"No!" said Jack, grabbing the kid by the arm to stop him. He glanced around. "Not here. The pub would be better." He turned to Gwen. "Gwen? How are you doing?"

She raised her head to give him the knife-edge grin. "Be back in fighting form in a minute. Owen's got all the shot out."

He had, and every hole had closed over. He could still see little red marks where they'd been, but once he wiped the blood away, the wound looked like it had had weeks, maybe even months to heal. And Gwen's colour was back to its normal, healthy pallor.

"Reckon she'll be fine, Jack," he said, mindful of the outsider listening in. "It'd take more than this to slow down Gwen."

She grinned at him and hopped to her feet. She twisted experimentally and winced a bit, but she had a full range of motion.

Jack grinned at her. "Great." He turned back to the kid. "We've been dealing with things like this for years, kid, and we've got a few aces up our sleeves." He glanced at Gwen, whose expression had turned into a dark, dangerous sort of smile.

When she started forward, Owen kept within arm's reach, just in case, but she was steady. She stopped in front of the kid and eyed him narrowly.

He swallowed. "Please, miss — er, ma'am, I didn' mean to 'urt ya."

"I know," she said, voice low. "And I know that you're scared about halfway out of your mind right now. Which is why I'm forgiving you, just this once."

The kid looked at the floor and nodded, fidgeting. Whatever else the kid's faults, Owen couldn't criticise his ability to sense danger. Owen was frankly surprised Gwen hadn't blown the kid's head off in a kneejerk reaction.

"Should we go look for the others?" asked Owen. His stomach was tight with not knowing where they were or what the hell was going on.

Jack hesitated. "I'd rather have some idea what we're dealing with first," he said. "But if they're in trouble…"

"They haven't called for help yet," said Gwen. "And I could do with a little more time to get my feet under me. Getting shot can really take the wind out of a person's sails."

Owen gave her a sharp, evaluating look. At first glance she seemed fine, but shadows had appeared under her eyes. He wondered how much healing really took out of her. It certainly exhausted humans.

"Okay," said Jack, "we head to the pub, dig in, and regroup. And if we don't hear from the others soon, we go after them."

Owen nodded, grim, and tried to convince his stomach to stop feeling sick.

This was going to end poorly, he just knew it.


	2. We Seem to Have Stumbled into a Horror Film

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Waking up locked in a nightmare cellar with a fridge full of body parts is not awesome. But fortunately, the Torchwood team has backup, and taking away their phones isn't enough to stop them calling her.
> 
> They just hope she won't level the building this time. Jack had to have words with her about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are some parts of this chapter that I'm happy with, and some that I'm really not. But I wrote it four years ago at this point, and fixing the bits I don't like feels too much like digging up the past at this point. At some point, you just have to shrug and let things go.

Tosh woke in darkness. Her head throbbed like someone was pounding a great drum somewhere around her occipital lobe. She blinked spots away from her eyes, trying not to be sick.

She was cold. Her jacket was gone, and — yep, no gun. And no phone. She was in a cold, dark place with no gun and no phone and — _where were Ianto and Suzie?_

She sat bolt upright and immediately regretted it. She clutched her head as it spun and bit her tongue to keep from moaning. She forced her eyes back open and peered through the gloom. She was in some sort of cellar, with crates scattered on the floor and chains hanging from the ceiling. An old wooden door leaned against one wall. Light shone from some sort of chute leading up to the surface.

A patch of something white and rumpled caught her attention. She edged closer. It was Ianto's shirt.

"Ianto!" she gasped, scrambling on all fours to his side. He lay with one arm outstretched above his head, unmoving. His face was slack and looked god-awfully young. Tosh shook him. He twitched, and his eyes moved under their lids. He gave a faint moan. "Ianto, you need to wake up," Tosh told him, smacking his cheeks.

At last, his eyes cracked open. He put a hand to his head and groaned aloud. "Tosh?"

"How badly are you hurt?" asked Tosh. "Can you sit up?"

"Don't know." He tried to push himself up, breath hissing between his teeth in pain. Tosh took him by the arm and helped him sit upright. He immediately buried his head in his hands. "Oohh god," he mumbled.

"Tell me about it," said Tosh. Her own head continued to throb, making it hard to think. She looked around again. "I haven't found Suzie yet. She's got to be in here…" Or so Tosh really hoped, anyway.

Ianto raised his head to look around, but all that was visible from where they sat was crates and empty floor. Tosh wondered if her head could tolerate standing up.

She was saved from having to find out quite so soon by the sound of a gasp, which turned at once into list of swear words.

"Suzie?" called Tosh in a loud whisper. The voice was coming from the other side of a pile of crates.

The swearing segued into coughing and retching, and then into a hoarse, "Tosh?"

"We're over here," Tosh whisper-called back.

They heard some scuffling, then Suzie came crawling around the crates. She looked awful, pale and dirty, her long curly hair out of its tie and hanging about her face in a dishevelled mess, and her eyes so shadowed they looked bruised. Tosh didn't imagine she looked any better herself.

"What happened?" asked Ianto, eyes buried in his hands again.

"Something grabbed us," said Suzie. "I caught a glimpse of it. It looked vaguely human, but all covered up in an overcoat and hood. I tried to shoot it, but it was too fast. Or there was another one behind me."

"Heard that," mumbled Ianto. "Tried to help, but they got me too. Didn't see them either." He raised his head, eyes wide and frightened. "Where are we?"

"Some sort of cellar, I think," said Tosh. Checking her pockets, she found she still had a small torch. She clicked it on and shone it around.

Ianto sniffed the air. "Feels pretty far underground, judging by the air quality and sound reverberation. I suppose they've taken everything we could use to fight or call for help?" His voice was tense and not quite completely steady.

"Yep," said Tosh grimly.

Suzie sucked in a sharp breath. "Not everything." She scrabbled at her sleeve. For a moment, Tosh's scrambled brain couldn't make sense of it. Then the memory connected and she went tugging at her own sleeve.

The sight of Gwen's symbol on her arm settled something in Tosh's stomach. And then, before her eyes, the symbol began glow, gently fluorescing in the darkness. It was warm and tingly on her skin.

"Oh," murmured Suzie in awe, and Tosh looked up to see Ianto and Suzie's symbols were lit up too. And then something alien brushed against Tosh's mind.

She gasped quietly. She could _feel_ it — a strand of worry and anxiety that wasn't hers, a floating question of _where are you?_

 _Trapped_ , she tried to say back. _We're trapped. Can you come help us?_

"She's looking for us," said Tosh. "She said she'd always be able to find us with these, didn't she?"

"That's what she said," agreed Suzie. She looked up at the cellar. "Let's see if we can get out before she gets here."

"Haven't met a cell yet I couldn't get out of," said Tosh. The two women shared a grin at the challenge and got to their feet with a minimum of staggering. Suzie headed for the chute while Tosh started a circuit of the room, examining the walls with her torch. Ianto got to his feet much more gingerly. He looked over the objects lying helter-skelter through the room. Finding a big meat hook, his picked it up and clutched it grimly.

"What if they get here first?" he asked. "That body, in the forest…"

"Don't think about it," said Tosh sharply. You had to keep your mind clear in a situation like this, and away from dangerous spirals. She looked around for something for Ianto to do, to keep his mind busy. "See if you can get that light to work, huh?"

He stood up on a crate to fiddle with the hanging lightbulb. Tosh came around the wall to the chute.

"Tosh," Suzie mumbled so Ianto wouldn't hear. She held out a hand for Tosh to see. Tosh shone her light on it. It was covered in blood — old, off-colour blood. Tosh could smell it. It made her nausea come back. Suzie pointed at the chute. The old blood was smeared down it and puddled at the bottom.

Ah. So they dumped bodies down the chute to get them into the cellar without bothering with stairs. But Tosh and the others hadn't been dumped down the chute; they were smeared with a fair bit of dirt, but no mucky old blood. Thank goodness.

"Can't get up it," said Suzie at a normal volume. "Too steep and slippy. We'll have to go for the door." They both headed for it, now recovered enough to be steady.

"You're used to this, aren't you?" said Ianto, still struggling with the light. Standing seemed to be making him dizzy, and he spoke between breaths. "That facial expression … you all share … when things get a … bit out of control." He gave up on the light with a grunt. "Like you enjoy it." He turned to them, voice rising to something almost angry. "Like you get a high from the danger."

"You want us to apologise for that?" demanded Tosh, looking away from her examination of the door — a massive, solid old thing that would probably take a bomb or a battering ram to get through.

The combination of head injury and fear seemed to have broken down some sort of barrier in Ianto, and the words just poured out of him. "Don't you ever wonder how long you can survive before … you— you go mad, or— or get killed, or lose a loved one…"

Tosh whirled on him. "It's worth the risk! To protect people!" Suzie stood silently beside her, eyes flicking from one of them to the other.

"And who protects us?!" Ianto shouted back.

They stared at each other in silence, frozen, for one long moment. Suzie moved first, tugging her sleeve down to cover her mark. It was now glowing so brightly it showed right through the fabric. Tosh's mark burned on her own arm. Ianto clasped a hand over his.

And that, really, answered that question.

"What's that?" asked Suzie, grabbing for Tosh's light. Tosh handed it over, and Suzie led the way into a dark corner. She was looking at something on the floor. Tosh peered around her.

"It's just a shoe," said Tosh.

"No it isn't," said Suzie, and as her light travelled up, they saw that she was right. There were piles of shoes, on the ground, on a shelf, piled on top of a wall cabinet. "There are dozens of them," she said in a low, grim voice. "In fact, I'd go so far as to say seventeen pairs, for seventeen missing people."

"Oh my god," mumbled Ianto as Suzie's light left the shoes and found a great pile of clothing. Tosh could see a man's wool suit and a woman's lacy underthings. She looked up past them.

"Is that a fridge?"

Suzie moved over to it. "Big industrial one, yeah." She opened it.

The white light on her pale skin and wild hair made Suzie look ghost-like. Her eyes went wide. The hand with the torch dropped loosely to her side. Then she slammed the door and leaned against it.

"Suzie?" asked Ianto. "What is it, what's in there?"

"Bodies," said Suzie succinctly. "In bits. Do yourself a favour, don't look." She took a step away and started retching again, bent double, but she'd emptied her stomach earlier and nothing came up. "Gwen was right," she said hoarsely. "That body was butchered. They're being eaten. We're food."

A cold chill settled into Tosh's spine, and her head started up a fresh, nauseating throb. "So why aren't we dead yet?" she asked in an undertone.

Suzie shrugged, still bent over. "Fridge is full. Being alive keeps us fresh."

"Oh god," said Ianto, sinking to the floor.

***

It was getting dark as Gwen and the others darted up the empty, silent street to the pub, keeping the kid — Kieran, he said his name was — shielded in the middle. They ducked into the dark main room.

"Anything in here?" Jack asked Gwen in an undertone. She shook her head; the building felt empty and cold to her senses. But then, things had got past her before.

"Better check anyway," she murmured back.

Owen, who'd just set Kieran on a bench and told him to try to rest, came over to join them. "What about the others?" he asked quietly.

"I can feel them," said Gwen. "They're alive, but they're scared and I think they're hurt. Ianto feels more afraid than the others."

"Well, it is only his second field mission," said Jack, "and the first one didn't go so well." He shot Gwen a you-wouldn't-know-anything-about-that-would-you sort of look, but it bounced off without effect. Her mind was busy.

As soon as she got Jack, Owen, and the kid dug in here, she would be off to find Tosh, Ianto, and Suzie. She expected to face resistance to this plan, especially in the light of her injury, but frankly couldn't give a toss. She didn't want to go diving into danger with Owen and Jack in tow. They'd slow her down, and she'd worry about them — or, well, Owen, anyway. Jack was apparently Mister Indestructible. And besides, somebody had to stay to protect the kid.

"We can't just leave them out there!" Owen was saying to Jack, who was already moving furniture in front of doors and windows.

"Gwen says they're okay for the moment, and they aren't children. They can look after themselves. The kid is our first priority. They've already been for him once; they're not gonna give up that easily."

Gwen was only half paying attention, too busy wracking her brains for any idea of what they were up against. "So have you ever heard of a species who strip human bodies of flesh and organs?" she asked them. "'Cause that's a new one to me."

"No," said Jack as he and Owen shifted a cabinet in front of the back door. "And we have to assume that the others who disappeared have been killed too."

"So there've been seventeen deaths," said Gwen grimly, feeling the beginnings of real anger stirring in her gut. She looked over at Kieran. He was lying on the bench with the shotgun clutched on his chest, fast asleep — exhausted by terror.

"At least," said Jack. "These aren't casual killers."

"Okay," said Owen, checking the ammunition in his gun. "So all this means the Rift is spreading and it's dumping aliens and psychos wherever it fancies."

"Looks like that," said Jack with his things-are-getting-crazy-and-I'm-kind-of-enjoying-it grin.

Owen cocked a sarcastic eyebrow. "Great. This conversation's cheered me up no end."

A sudden spike of fear and horror made Gwen gasp and stand bolt upright. It wasn't hers; she traced it back through the link to Suzie.

"What is it?" asked Jack urgently.

The fear was coming from Tosh and Ianto now too. "Something's happening to the others," Gwen said shortly, already heading for the only door they hadn't blocked.

"You can't go out there alone!" Owen nearly shouted.

"Yes I can." Gwen turned to them and went invisible. "Have you ever tried to catch something you couldn't see?"

Owen and Jack both stared at her — well, through her — for an anxious moment.

"All right, go," said Jack. "But be careful!"

"Same goes for you," said Gwen, reappearing so they could see she had her serious face on. "I mean it. Anything tries to break in here, don't take chances, just shoot. There's no point—"

A knock came at one of the windows, a shadow showing through the lacy curtain. Owen whirled and had his gun on it in an instant. Jack had been facing the other way, and by the time he'd turned, the shadow was gone.

"Somebody outside?" he asked.

Gwen nodded, flexing her fingers. Sparks arced between them. Something glass smashed outside, making them all jump, and a shadow passed another window.

"Was that the same one, or different?" asked Owen, his grip on his gun so tight Gwen thought she heard the casing creak.

"Keep calm," she said softly. "I'm with you." Owen blew out a deep breath, and some of the tension went out of him. Success. Gwen glanced over at Kieran, still deep asleep. "He did say they'd come back, didn't he?"

"Let's not jump to conclusions," said Jack, pulling back a curtain to peer out one of the windows. "We don't know who they are or what their intentions are."

The lights went out with a fizzle, plunging the room into darkness. Gwen's eyes lit up on instinct.

"I'm thinking that's not a good sign," said Owen dryly. He and Jack both scrambled for their torches so that Gwen's eyes weren't the only source of light in the room. Owen shoved a chair under the handle of the unblocked door, and then backed that up with a heavy wooden table. No sooner had he done so than the handle started to turn and the door rattled against the chair.

Kieran woke then, sitting up and clutching the shotgun. "They've come back!"

"Kieran, listen to my voice," said Gwen in a firm, calm voice that had seen her through many a crisis. "Come here. Keep close to us. We'll keep you safe." That was when Kieran looked at her and saw her eyes. He made a high-pitched little noise, and the tip of his gun wavered, like he wasn't sure where to point it.

Jack swooped to the rescue, taking Kieran by the shoulders. "Kid, look at me. Remember when I said we have aces up our sleeves? Gwen's one of them, the biggest one. You say these things aren't human? Well neither is she, and they'll have to get through her to hurt you. Now come on." Kieran didn't resist as Jack pulled him over to the bar, Gwen, and Owen.

The attempts on the front door had gone eerily quiet. In the silence, they clearly heard another door handle start to squeak. The all turned, guns and torches foremost. The door to the cellar unlatched and pushed against a chain and padlock. 

"Okay," said Jack, looking back at the rest of them with a bit of a rueful grin. "So we didn't check the cellar."

"Get behind the bar, all of you," said Gwen, still in that calm voice. In her mind, she had entered a state of perfect, cold clarity. It was what she did when she'd decided that if she had to kill somebody, she wasn't going to hesitate or regret it.

The others did as she ordered. Owen, who had seen her in a temper before, ducked down without her having to tell him, and pulled the other two with him. The cellar door banged and rattled. Something slammed into the front door. And Gwen decided, to hell with it, she was putting on a show.

She lit herself up with dazzling light and filled her voice with power. _**"Come on, then,"**_ she called. _**"Come on and face me, little rats. Face an angel's wrath."**_ The banging paused. Gwen sneered. _**"Oh, you're all very well going after unsuspecting little humans, but try me. Try your luck against a creature who has walked this Earth for centuries, and see if you live to see another day."**_

***

The only noise after Gwen's pronouncement was the swirl of wind through the room. Golden light played on the ceiling above them, leaving Owen, Jack, and Kieran in a little pocket of shadow behind the bar. Kieran's eyes were painfully wide.

"For the record," Owen told Kieran with remarkable casualness for a man hiding behind a bar while the world went mad, "she isn't actually an angel. She just pretends to be one when she wants to scare the shit out of people." He cocked his head in memory. "And sometimes pretends _we're_ angels too, which is _so not true_ it's not even funny."

" _I_ think it's funny," said Jack with a grin.

Owen shot him a look. "That's because you're barmy, Jack Harkness."

The cellar door banged again, and this time they heard the splintering of wood. The door was in the hall beyond the bar, around the corner and out of sight from where they were hiding. They couldn't see what had just come through it. But they could see the golden glow of Gwen's attention turn in that direction.

A _whoosh_ of power shot by the end of the bar and down the hall. A human-sounding voice cried out, and something heavy smashed into a wall — and, apparently, knocked over a shelf, as a dozen smaller objects came clattering down.

Jack dared to pop his head up over the bar. Gwen looked the part of an angel, honestly. She was lit up like a lightbulb, eyes flaming like lamps, radiating righteous fury. He got why his team had taken one look at that and thought, _'Yeah, we'll just bugger off and leave the Cybermen to her.'_ And now she was turning to the front door as the chair and table were shoved away from it. The muzzle of a gun poked in.

BANG.

A bottle on the bar exploded, showering Jack with glass. He ducked. Another shot rang out. Gwen shrieked with rage, the sound filling the room and rattling the windows, and Jack realised, _'Hey yeah, she's technically a banshee, isn't she?'_ Gwen flung both hands out in front of her.

The table and chair were picked up off the ground and hit the half-open door so hard that they ripped it off its hinges, broke it in two, and took it with them on their way out. Whoever — or whatever — was outside screeched. Gwen headed for the blasted, empty doorway.

"Gwen, no!" cried Jack. They had guns, she was glowing, she was an excellent target, and _she was not bulletproof_.

She stopped in the doorway. _**"Fools,"**_ she roared out into the night, voice unnaturally loud. _**"Run away, little vermin! Run away and hide, because I'm coming to find you. I am the Angel of Death, and I will hunt you until dawn breaks."**_

She turned and came back in, the unearthly light fading to leave only her gleaming eyes. Jack stood cautiously, Owen straightening beside him. "I lied," Gwen told them. "I'm not stopping for dawn."

She walked right past the bar and down the hallway. Jack and Owen followed, Owen dragging a shell-shocked Kieran.

A dark, crumpled form lay in the shattered remains of a shelf of canned food. Gwen stood over it and conjured a bright light in her hand. She bent down, pulling a mask and hood off the head. A shocked noise escaped her. "Bloody hell." She looked up at Jack, eyes big and disbelieving. "He's human."

Jack crouched next to her and looked. Their fallen foe definitely looked it; short, dark hair, ordinary-looking, red human blood on his face from a cut on his head. "You sure?" he asked her.

She put her hand to the man's head for a moment, doing her magic scan thing. "Human, definitely. He's not even possessed or anything." Her face scrunched with confusion and horror. "They're human. How can they be human?"

"We don't know for sure they're all human," cautioned Jack. "But sometimes humans can be the worst monsters of all." Distant memories of the loss of his family and his first experiences with war tried to surface. Jack ruthlessly pushed them back.

Gwen's expression went hard and cold. Something dark came into her eyes — a rough swirl of shadow at the centre of the glow. She rose slowly to her feet.

"I'm going to find Tosh, Ianto, and Suzie. And then I'm finding out what's going on here. And _then_ I'm hunting _Every. Last. One._ of these bastards down."

"We'll get what we can out of this one when he comes to," said Jack. And then, because he couldn't think of anything else to say, not in the face of such monstrousness, "Godspeed."

Gwen nodded, and then tore from the room in a rush of wind.

They stared after her in silence for a moment, and then Owen asked, "When exactly did we become the back-up crew for the Gwen Cooper Let's-Just-Knock-the-Stuffing-out-of-Them Brigade? Not that I'm complaining. I think I'm likely to live a lot longer as back-up crew."

Glad to be pulled out of dark thoughts, Jack grinned at him. "Pretty much since the day she joined up. Best decision I ever made. Well." His expression went distant for a moment, thinking of another force of nature. "Second best."

***

"Got to be three steel bolts," said Tosh, examining the door, "top, middle, and bottom." She was still of the opinion that it would take a battering ram to get through.

"How are you at calculating target stress points?" asked Ianto. "Find the weakest point, bit of brute force…"

"How much brute force do you think we've got?" asked Suzie flatly. "That thing's reinforced."

Ianto tried anyway, holding himself up on a pipe on the low ceiling and kicking hard. Tosh had reclaimed her torch and was using it to look around for anything they might use as a pry-bar.

CLICK. A light went on outside the door, shining under it and through the tiny little viewing window in its centre. Ianto ducked to one side so he'd be behind the door as it opened. Suzie snatched up the meat-hook Ianto'd had earlier, while Tosh clutched her torch and prepared to shine it in their enemy's eyes. She wished it were large enough to use as a club.

The door opened, and the barrel of a shotgun came through. Ianto seized it and twisted it to the side. Suzie darted in and tackled the person holding it, delivering a sharp knee to the gut. A female voice choked and gasped, and Ianto twisted the gun right out of the woman's grasp. Suzie got the meat-hook around the woman's neck, its point digging in under her chin.

"Wait!" cried the woman. She was small, squat, and middle-aged. Her hair was pale and chin-length, and her eyes were bagged. She looked profoundly ordinary. "Wait, please!"

They stopped, Ianto with the gun held loosely ready, Suzie holding the woman by one arm with the hook around her neck, and Tosh shining the light in her face, making her squint.

"I wasn't gonna hurt you, I swear," gasped the woman. "I was trying to help — I'm a nurse." She received three suspicious, considering stares. "Please," she said. "Were any of you hurt when they took you? I can help."

"We've been bashed over the head and all have pounding headaches that are _not making us more friendly_ ," growled Suzie. But she backed off, releasing the woman and taking a step back. Though that might have been to get out of the line of fire if Ianto decided to shoot.

The woman breathed a sigh of relief. "Listen, does anyone know you're here? Have you managed to call for help?"

Tosh thought of the mark and stuck her left arm behind her back in case it was visible. She could just about see Ianto's through his sleeve. "Oh yeah. Help's coming."

Tosh was suddenly the centre of the woman's attention. "What sort of help? How long?" She sounded desperate, eager.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." No way was Tosh trying to explain Gwen to a civilian. "But it won't be long. They're already in the village."

"It might be too late then," said the woman, voice hushed and scared.

"What do you mean?" demanded Ianto.

"I've been sent to collect you. I've got to take you to them."

"Who's 'them'?" asked Suzie sharply. The woman looked down and shook her head, biting her lip.

"Tell us what's going on," Tosh entreated, stepping closer. "We can help."

The woman looked at her and gave a slightly hysterical little laugh. "No one's safe." She stared at them, eyes wide and horrified. "Every ten years, it takes us again."

" _What_ takes you?" demanded Suzie. "What is it?"

"The Harvest," the woman almost whispered.

The three Torchwood members exchanged looks. Something was harvesting people, and they were next on the menu.

"Please," said the woman. "You have to come with me!" She glanced at her gun and bit her lip, and she might as well have acknowledged out loud that she had no way of forcing them.

Tosh and Ianto both looked at Suzie, who was still technically second in command, even though the team dynamic had got weird since the introduction of Gwen.

"Might as well," said Suzie calmly. "We're not doing anybody any good stuck down here."

"Here." Ianto held out the gun to her. "You're the better shot."

And, Tosh suspected, the steadier hand under pressure, though Ianto really wasn't doing badly. They exchanged gun and meat-hook, and Suzie led the way as they followed the woman upstairs.

They came up into a small kitchen, opening into a little sitting room with a fireplace and very old-fashioned wallpaper. On the other side of the kitchen — cutting right through it, really — plastic sheeting hung from the ceiling.

"In there." The woman pointed at the sheeting.

"That stench," murmured Tosh. It filled her nose — blood and guts. Suzie held the gun up and ready while Ianto pulled the sheeting aside.

It was a butcher's workshop. Internal organs sat in bowls on a table. Butchered, skinned human bodies hung from the ceiling, like sides of beef and pork. Bile rose in Tosh's throat.

Suzie gave a sudden little shriek. Tosh and Ianto turned to find the woman, who'd got behind them in their distraction, had hit Suzie with a lamp and was trying to wrestle the gun away from her. Ianto moved to help, but a man sprang through the plastic sheeting and pointed a pistol at his head. Big hands closed over Tosh's upper arms before she could do anything. She writhed, trying to throw the man off, but he clamped her to his chest.

"Drop that gun, now," said the big, scruffy, balding fellow who was threatening Ianto. "Or the other two get it." 

Suzie looked up from her struggle and saw how the tables had turned. Her face went blank, and she stopped fighting. The other woman wrenched the gun away and pointed it at Suzie's chest. Suzie stood erect, tilted her head slightly back, and fixed the woman with an unnerving stare.

Tosh was oddly proud of her for that stare. They were Torchwood, and Torchwood didn't go down easy. Tosh tried to match Suzie's eerie composure and demanded, "Who are you, and what do you want?"

"What does it look like we want?" said the scruffy man with a gesture at the hanging corpses. "A bit more grub for our larder."

"It's you, isn't it?" said Suzie, cold, hard, still staring at the woman, who was looking less and less brave as she tried to keep staring back. "Not some mysterious 'they.' Just you. Your 'Harvest.'"

"Oh, look," said the scruffy man. "This one's clever!"

"They've called for help," said the woman, "but it might just be those other three, in the village."

"They won't be a problem," said the man. "How are they?" He raked Ianto with a look Tosh really didn't like. Ianto's taught frame tightened further.

"They're in a good state," said the woman, throwing a toothy, hungry smile at Suzie. Suzie refused to be fazed. If Tosh had been the one pointing the gun at Suzie, it would have given her the creeps.

"Good… Cuff 'em before they try to make trouble," he told the man holding Tosh. The second man dragged her over to a box with handcuffs sitting on it. She fought him, stomped on his foot and elbowed him hard in the gut. All she achieved was gritted teeth and a grunt of pain. He was just too damn big, and she had no leverage. She wished she'd spent more of her teenaged years taking martial arts classes and less writing malicious computer code into Geordie Stavanger's programming to get back at him for calling her a Jap.

Her hands were cuffed roughly behind her with the type of handcuffs that connected to each other directly, without even a link of chain between. The man, who'd yet to say a word, then dumped her on the floor, picked up another set of cuffs, and headed for Ianto.

Ianto twitched and looked ready to resist despite the gun aimed at his head, so the man punched him in the gut to make him double over. Then both men seized Ianto and wrestled him into the cuffs.

"What's this now?" said the scruffy man, pulling Ianto's sleeve away from his mark. It gleamed. Tosh's own mark burned on her arm.

Footsteps pounded and a door burst open. Tosh's hopes were dashed as three unfamiliar men stumbled through the sheeting into the room, gasping and pulling masks and hoods from their faces.

"What happened?" asked the scruffy man, straightening. "They get away?"

"It was the woman!" gasped a youngish blond fellow. "She— she— she's not human!"

"What? Make sense, mun!"

"She _glowed_! She had a voice like thunder! She said she was an angel—"

Tosh choked back a snigger.

"We ran them to ground in the pub," said a greying man with a salt-and-pepper beard, who was only marginally calmer than the panicky blond. He kept fidgeting with his shotgun and looking over his shoulder. "We cut the power. But then the place lit up like Christmas, and it all came from the woman. We tried to shoot her, but then the door just _exploded_ — it broke Jim's wrist." He waved at the third man, who was pale and cradling his wrist. "We had to run. Evan, she said she was going to hunt us down, hunt us until dawn…" His voice rose with fear and trailed off.

"Gerry's still in there," said the blond, wringing his hands. "He hid in the pub cellar, to ambush them. They must have got him."

"You're talking nonsense," said the scruffy man, apparently Evan. "There's no such thing as angels, mun."

"You," said the woman. She was staring at Suzie, who was smirking. "What do you know?" She raised the gun a little higher, putting on a scowl that didn't quite disguise that she was afraid — really afraid, now.

The lights began to flicker. Suzie glanced up at them, then looked back at the woman, the corners of her mouth curled just slightly up, her eyes cold and knowing. "You should've paid more attention to old myths," she said in a soft, chiding voice. "Lots of good lessons in old myths. They warn you about things like this — about the powerful old dangers that lurk in this world … and how _stupid_ it is to provoke their wrath."

She looked over her shoulder as a great wind rose outside and the windows began to rattle in their frames. "And at a rough estimate, I'd say you've provoked a lot of wrath."

The lights flickered off and on. And then the windows exploded, showering the room with glass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was really important to me to keep that exchange between Tosh and Ianto. It shows so clearly the two sides of Torchwood, the good and the bad, and how Ianto doesn't get a high off this stuff like the rest of them, but goes ahead and does it anyway. That's real bravery. And his question at the end — "And who protects us?!" — was a large part of what inspired this entire series. Torchwood protects the world, but who protects Torchwood?
> 
> And so we have Gwen, Torchwood's glorified, totally deadly babysitter. 'Cause they really, really need one.


	3. Howling in the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwen could tear the cannibals to pieces, sure. But why do it herself when there are _so many others_ to whom this revenge would mean _so much more?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though it's four years old at this point, I'm still pretty happy with this chapter, and it was really satisfying to write. I hope you find it satisfying to read!

The front door blew open and banged off the wall. Suzie, Tosh, and Ianto all dived for cover, Tosh under the table with the bowls full of offal. Their captors scarcely noticed, too busy yelling and trying to run from the thunderstorm breaking into their house.

The cupboard doors were banging open and shut. The air went deathly cold. Something tickled Tosh's arm, making her jerk, heart in her mouth. She twisted around to see. A little green tendril with a few baby leaves had sprouted between the floorboards and was reaching up to the mark on Tosh's arm. It ought to have made her cringe away, but instead ... it felt weirdly reassuring.

The lights went out entirely. Several voices screamed. The shadows were so deep and dark they seemed solid, and they were moving. Everything was moving.

Except the scruffy man, Evan. He stood tall in the middle of the kitchen, gun in hand. "Trying to play the same games with us as we played with you, are ya?" he called through the wind, either composed or doing a really good job of faking it. "Well, it ain't gonna work on me. Come out and face me!"

Tosh waited with bated breath, shivering in the cold, to see what Gwen would do.

A figure appeared in front of Evan. But it wasn't Gwen. She was blonde. And completely transparent, her form pale and nearly colourless. She held a mobile in one hand.

Tosh recognised Ellie Johnson from the photos of the missing people. Ellie had been the most recent … and she'd disappeared in the middle of a phone call.

 _"You killed me,"_ Ellie told Evan in a faint, whispery voice like wind through old leaves. Evan was frozen, utterly still, mouth open. The woman from the cellar was cowering behind him, gaping in horror. _"You killed me,"_ said Ellie. _"Now I'm gonna kill you."_

The woman let out a hoarse cry of terror and tried to run. Another apparition appeared in her path — the man who'd owned the wool suit in the cellar. He looked like he might also be the body of the middle-aged man they'd found in the woods. The woman stopped dead. Tosh could hear one of the other cannibals repeating "Oh god," over and over, but couldn't see what was facing him.

 _"You liked to frighten us, didn't you?"_ said Ellie, taking a step toward Evan. _"You liked to chase us, hurt us, watch us scream and run and suffer."_

Evan's jaw clenched. He raised his gun and fired. The bullet whizzed straight through Ellie's head and into a cupboard, shattering something ceramic. She kept coming. _"You demeaned us, hurt us, and tore us apart in every way you could think of. And now it's our turn. What do you think we're going to do to you?"_

The woman broke with a howl of fear and ran for the door. The other cannibals weren't far behind her. Only Evan stood his ground, but he was wavering.

 _"Run,"_ whispered Ellie. _"I want to see you run."_

And as the ghosts of his victims closed in, Evan ran.

A pair of golden eyes appeared out of the darkness — Gwen at last. She let out a wolf-howl so real that all Tosh's hair stood on end, a million-year-old prey instinct telling her to run and hide. And then before Tosh's eyes, the apparitions changed. Their human forms collapsed and shifted, and they became wolves. Ghostly grey wolves with gleaming teeth and empty, blank eyes.

Gwen whooshed past Tosh's table and out of the house. The wolves followed. Tosh ducked and curled into a ball as they dashed by on either side of her with a rush of frigid air and a distant, not-quite-there pounding of paws.

Then they were gone, and the chill eased, and all Tosh could hear was her heart thumping in her ears. Slowly, cautiously, she edged out from under the table on her knees. The house was dark, but she could just about see that most of the sheeting had been torn down. Suzie emerged from behind an armchair in the back corner of the sitting room. Ianto worked his way awkwardly out from under a small dining table, knocking over a chair as he went.

"Christ," said Suzie succinctly.

"It was an unconventional rescue," said Ianto, recovering a little of his usual composure now that they were out of immediate danger. "But I'll take it." He staggered to his feet. "Now, er, Suzie, if you wouldn't mind…" He flexed his bound arms pointedly.

"Oh! Right, just let me find something I could use as a lock-pick. Tosh, what happened to your torch?"

"I think it rolled over by the counter."

Suzie found it, clicked it on, and blew out a deep breath as she shone it on the mess around her. "Right."

***

Suzie found a paperclip in a kitchen drawer. Using skills she'd developed during her childhood hiding and retrieving things from her bastard of a father, she made short work of the handcuffs. As soon as they were free, she tossed Tosh her light back and turned on one she'd found in a drawer — an old incandescent bulb and a bit dim, but better than nothing. Then she headed for the knife-block.

None of the cannibals had been considerate enough to drop their guns, so the three of them made do with some big, mean kitchen knives — and did their best not to think about where the knives had been.

"Come on, let's get the hell out of here," said Tosh with a furtive glance at the hanging corpses.

Suzie shuddered at what had so nearly happened to them and led the way.

Outside, the ghostly howls of wolves drifted on the breeze. A distant scream echoed from somewhere amongst the trees. Suzie shivered and told her heartbeat to calm down.

"Are we sure this is really happening, and we aren't just trapped in a horror film?" asked Tosh.

"Feels pretty real to me," said Ianto, switching his knife to his other hand so he could wipe sweat off his palm on his jeans.

"Lights off, I think," said Suzie. "I'd rather we weren't easy to find." Nobody argued with that.

"Which way to the village?" asked Tosh.

Suzie looked around and realised she had no idea. They were mostly surrounded by forest. A dirt drive led down from the house to a dirt road, and presumably one direction or the other led to the village. But if they picked the wrong one, it would be thirty miles before they got anywhere.

Ianto looked up at the starry sky. "That's Polaris, the Pole Star." He pointed to some unremarkable speck high above. "So that's north. And the village was to the south of the forest, so…" He pointed at the road leading more or less south, and then paused. "Is that a light?"

It was. A flashing blue light somewhere down the road, just visible through the trees and brush. Suzie took a steadying breath and gestured for the others to follow. They crept up on it with all the care of a hunter stalking deer — if the hunter were terrified every minute that the deer would pull out a gun and start shooting back at him, anyway. So maybe it was more like the care of soldiers trying to sneak through enemy territory. Recently traumatised soldiers whose hearts tried to jump out of their mouths every time a twig cracked.

Peeking through the leaves of a big bush, they saw that the flashing lights were a police Land Rover. The driver door stood open, and an abandoned torch glowed in the grass beside it. And approaching the car from further down the road were three dim figures, one of whom definitely had a shotgun.

Suzie, Tosh, and Ianto ducked low into the bushes. Suzie wondered if she should use her mark to call Gwen back. She didn't fancy trying to bring knives to a gunfight.

Then the three figures stepped into the light of the police car. The first thing Suzie noticed was that all three had guns — the shotgun, and two handguns. The second thing was that one of them was wearing a greatcoat.

"That's Jack!" hissed Tosh, ecstatic. "And Owen!"

"Who's that with them?" asked Ianto.

The man with the shotgun was entirely unfamiliar to Suzie, but he looked very young. Jack and Owen were keeping him behind them, shielding him from potential attack. "Dunno, but they clearly don't think he's dangerous. Come on!" And then, before emerging, she shouted, "Jack! Owen!" Because getting shot by their own side would be a really terrible and embarrassing way to end this already godawful chapter in Torchwood's history.

"Suzie!" Jack and Owen cried, almost in unison, as she pushed her way out onto the road. "Tosh! Ianto!" added Jack with audible relief as they emerged behind her. Suzie stuck her knife in her belt and ran to them.

Within a moment, Jack found himself with his arms very full with both Suzie and Ianto, while Owen got an armful of Tosh. Jack squeezed them tight.

"Well thank god for that," Owen was saying. "When Gwen went haring off after you, we were afraid…"

"Suzie, you're bleeding!" said Jack, pulling his hand from the back of her head. Blood glistened on his skin.

Suzie bit her lip at the fresh throb of pain from Jack's touch. "Yeah, got bashed over the head. Twice." Though the second one really hadn't been effectual. It had just aggravated the first one. "Might have a little bit of a concussion."

Jack released Ianto and Suzie only to be grabbed for a hug by Tosh, while Suzie got a face-full of Owen in his rarely seen Worried Doctor Mode, shining his torch in her eyes and checking her over.

"Any blurred vision?"

"Little bit."

"Dizziness?"

"Yes."

"Nausea? Vomiting?"

"God, yes."

"Headache?"

Suzie glared. "Stupid question."

"True," he admitted. "You've got a concussion, all right. We'll see if Gwen has any magic fixes, but until then, I'm not letting you out of my bloody sight."

Suzie rolled her eyes at him in equal parts irritation and fondness, then winced because rolling her eyes really hurt. She decided to limit herself to vocal exasperation for the immediate future. "Ianto and Tosh got hit too, so you'd better watch us all. But considering we just escaped from a den of cannibals uneaten, I'm counting us lucky."

Apparently Jack, Owen, and their companion had found out about what the villagers were doing, because they showed no surprise. "Cannibals," muttered Owen. "Still can't bloody believe it. Only in the sodding countryside…"

Another round of howling went up in the woods.

"What was that?!" asked the young man with the shotgun. He looked petrified. Personally, Suzie wouldn't have allowed him a gun.

Tosh gave a hoarse, slightly hysterical laugh. "Oh god, you're not going to believe what Gwen's done this time. Let's steal a squad car, and we'll tell you all about it."

"Who can hotwire a squad car?" asked Jack.

"I can," said Suzie.

"You're not driving," Owen informed her flatly.

"No need," called Ianto, leaning in the open door. "The keys are still in it."

"Local bobbies," said Owen derisively.

"If he's local," said Tosh slowly, "then he must be involved. How else could all these disappearances pass virtually unnoticed?"

Silence reigned for a moment while they all tried and failed to come up with an explanation other than the local coppers being cannibals too. Suzie supposed they could just be really, really inept, but … no. An inept copper would have just got himself eaten.

A terrified shriek rose in the distance, making them all tense. Wolves howled.

"Let's get out of here," said Jack.

"Who's riding in the back?" asked Owen.

"Just get in," groaned Suzie.

***

Trying to fit six people into one police Land Rover was an adventure that didn't involve too many seatbelts, but they managed. Stories were exchanged, and Tosh took charge of keeping young Kieran calm while he was surrounded by so very many good reasons to freak out. And then three ghostly wolves chased a dark figure across the road ahead of them, making Jack slam on the brakes. They all sat quietly and stared after them for a minute.

"Do you think we should try to stop her?" asked Owen from the back.

"No," said Suzie flatly from the passenger seat. "They don't deserve anyone's mercy."

"Yeah, but the wolves might be kinda difficult to explain to the emergency services," Owen pointed out. Jack had summoned them back at the pub, as soon as they'd made sure they were dealing with humans. And now, sure enough, they began to hear sirens, wailing just at the edge of hearing.

Jack chewed his lip. They both had a point, but… "Gwen knows how to avoid notice. She'll look after things. In the meantime, let's focus on briefing the police and getting Kieran safe home. Er…" He twisted around in his seat to look at Kieran's pale face in the backseat. "It might be best if you didn't mention Gwen or the wolves to anyone."

Kieran gave a huff of strained, high-pitched laughter. "No bloody chance. I'm gonna get saddled with enough counselling as it is." He paused, and then said awkwardly. "Thanks, and all. Reckon I'd be dead now if it weren't for you and your Gwen."

Tosh put a hand on his shoulder and smiled at him. "It's our job."

"Cannibals are not our job," complained Owen.

"Well, no. But protecting people certainly is."

The village was crawling with flashing lights by the time they got there. Jack, with his clout as head of Torchwood, had summoned everything he could get his hands on. Which looked like half the emergency services in all Wales.

The police had already found a couple of the butchered bodies in the buildings. Jack started briefing the cops while Owen saw Kieran into the care of the paramedics, and then recruited their help to give Suzie, Ianto, and Tosh proper examinations. The paramedics wanted to take them back to the hospital for observation, particularly Suzie, but all three of them refused, and Owen promised he'd keep a close eye on them. Reassured by his clear medical expertise, the paramedics backed off, leaving the injured members of the team with icepacks, blankets, and thermoses of tea.

By the time Owen was done with the paramedics, the police were organising search teams and advising their officers that anyone they found alive was likely to be armed and dangerous. Torchwood watched them go, sipping tea and utterly relieved that their part in this mess was over.

Jack came over to the rest of them. "Come on, they've found our SUV. Let's go home."

"What about Gwen?" asked Tosh.

Jack raised his marked left arm. "She knows where to find us."

Their hands all went to their marks. They had faded, but still tingled gently. Gwen was keeping track of them.

It was a long trudge to the SUV, especially for those of them with throbbing headaches. And when they got there, they found a dark figure sitting on the bonnet, staring out over the countryside.

"Gwen!" cried Jack. She looked up and slid off, striding up to meet them. Something was still boiling in her eyes.

"How badly did they hurt you?" she demanded.

"Suzie's worst off," said Owen. "Concussion."

Gwen looked into Suzie's eyes and laid a gentle hand on the side of her head. "Hmm. Heads are tricky, but I'll see what I can do."

Suzie moaned and leaned into her hand. "God, you're better than any painkiller, you are."

"Yeah, maybe," said Gwen, "but heads are still tricky. I can speed things up, but you're still going to need a lot of sleep after this."

Suzie didn't seem to care, relaxing so completely into Gwen's touch that Owen grabbed her to keep her upright. She gave a little sigh when Gwen took her hand away, but stood under her own power. Gwen moved on to Ianto and Tosh, both of whom accepted her ministrations with relief. They also went kind of boneless and loose when she finished with them. Jack was betting they'd all be fast asleep within two minutes of sitting down.

"So," he said would-be-casually to Gwen, "you leave any of them alive?"

Something dark came into her expression. "Most of them. One had a heart-attack. But the rest of the village is still staggering around out there, mostly minus their guns, ready to be arrested." Gwen smiled a cold, terrible smile. "I'm nowhere near done with them yet."

"Was that—" faltered Tosh. "Was that really Ellie Johnson, and the other victims?"

Gwen turned her gold eyes, usually so warm, and now so strangely cold, on Tosh. "In a manner of speaking. They were echoes. I gave them strength, gave them form, let them act. But they couldn't really kill — not directly. So I showed them other ways to get revenge."

Jack swallowed hard. This cold, cruel rage was a side of Gwen they'd never seen before. But he should have expected it. She was a faerie, after all. "We're headed back now," he told her. "Coming?"

He wasn't that much surprised when she shook her head. "I'm going to stay here for a bit, make sure no one escapes, and none of the police get killed. I'll make my own way back tomorrow." When she saw their worried stares, she made an attempt at a proper smile. "I don't think I'd be very good company just now. I'm too angry. But don't worry about me. I'll see you tomorrow."

"All right," said Jack, and she turned, walked away, and faded to nothing.

***

Jack was right that Suzie, Ianto, and Tosh slept the whole way back to the Hub. When they arrived and stumbled into the light, the whole team were sweaty, dirty, exhausted, and operating in a kind of traumatised twilight world. Everything seemed dim and distant, almost surreal. Jack led them all into the conference room. With a clinking of glass, he pulled out a bottle of whisky and a bunch of shot glasses and set them on the table. The team dropped into chairs and watched him blankly as he poured.

When Jack passed out the glasses, the team all threw them back without comment. He gave them a moment for the alcohol to settle before he asked, "So how did this temper tantrum compare to the last one?" He had been the only one to not witness Gwen's showdown with the Cybermen.

"Less bang," said Owen, "but for my money, this one was scarier. All that hunting them down through the woods stuff…"

"The first time I really spoke to her," said Suzie, staring at her glass, "she told me she could be a monster if you got her angry enough. I think I see now what she meant."

"Imagine what she'd do to someone who hurt her daughter," said Tosh.

They all did.

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," said Owen.

***

Gwen did indeed return the next day. The cold anger still hung around her, though she showed warmth and concern when she insisted on taking Suzie, Ianto, and Tosh aside to check their recovery. Once satisfied that all they needed was rest, she seemed unable to keep still or maintain a civil attitude, and she soon vanished again.

Gwen's temper continued at a low simmer for the next week. It wasn't that she didn't laugh and joke; it was the deadly edge with which she did it. Her grins showed too many teeth, her laughter was a bit too cold. A vein of rage ran under the surface, and it put them all on edge. Gwen's teammates were reminded that she was, at her heart, a feral creature, and they'd be wise to remember it.

She disappeared more than normal, too, and Jack was pretty sure he knew what she was doing. He was keeping an eye on the progressing case against the cannibalistic villagers, and several of them had completely lost their minds since their arrest. One had committed suicide in custody. And the leader, Evan Sherman … Jack had got a report that he'd screamed himself hoarse one night, then told his interviewers everything the next morning. By the next day, he had descended into a tortured, gibbering wreck, and nothing more could be got out of him.

If things continued as they were, the villagers would be found criminally insane and confined in secure institutions for the rest of their lives. Authorities were already checking the village's water supply for lead or other contaminants.

Gwen drifted into the Hub just as Jack was finishing reading the report. He called her into his office. She came with a strange half-smile.

"I take it this is your doing?" he said, turning his computer screen so she could see. Gwen leaned in to look, and her smile broadened. It was cold and made Jack shiver a little.

"Hm," she said. "I should have found something that would eat him alive. Now that would have been justice."

"Has anyone ever told you you're scary?" asked Jack.

"Frequently."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this one! I have one more complete story squirrelled away for this series, and then I'm down to incomplete bits and pieces. I would like to finish them, but it's been so long since I wrote anything for this 'verse that I'm not sure how getting back into that groove will go.


End file.
